FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT CRISTINA SARALEGUI - PAGE 3

NBC Universal-owned Telemundo announced a major overhaul in the programming, marketing, distribution and sales strategies of its Latin American cable network, Telemundo Internacional. Antoinette Zel, Telemundo's senior executive vice president of network strategy, said in a statement that Telemundo Internacional will morph into a general entertainment channel that will more closely resemble the Telemundo U.S. broadcast network. The repositioning will allow the company to take advantage of Telemundo's creative and promotional resources to better compete with the growing number of Spanish-language cable networks.

What could be better for ratings than a public spat between an unfaithful cabaret dancer and her former fiance, a well-known Mexican telenovela producer? Now that it has been confirmed that Niurka Marcos dumped Juan Osorio for fellow aspiring actor Bobby Larios (her love interest in the telenovela Velo de Novia, which Osorio produces) gossip shows around the globe are having a field day. The paparazzi are following the new couple all over Mexico City, collecting footage as the lovebirds engage in public, and frankly, very gross displays of affection -- just as Marcos and Osorio once did. In the United States, the big winner in this saga has turned out to be UnivisiM-sn's prime-time talk show Cristina.

DESIGN/ANTIQUES Scenes from the House Beautiful: An hourlong screening of vintage film that records America's obsession with home decor, presented by Cinema Vortex and the Wolfsonian-FIU at 7 p.m. today at the Wolfsonian-FIU auditorium, 1001 Washington Ave., Miami Beach. Free, includes galleries open at 6 p.m. featuring the exhibition "Evolution/Revolution: A Century of Modern Seating." Call 305-531-1001 or visit www.cinemavortex.org. Cristina Saralegui collection: Cristina Saralegui, host of The Cristina Show on Univision, will make an appearance to introduce the Casa Cristina Furniture Collection by Pulaski at two El Dorado Furniture stores on May 5: 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m., Palmetto Boulevard store, 4200 NW 167th St., 305-624-2400; 4:30-7:30 p.m., Kendall Boulevard store, 13755 SW 88th St. (North Kendall Drive)

First lady Laura Bush presided over what seemed like a White House book club Thursday -- two hours of studying, interpreting and celebrating author Mark Twain. The event was the first in what is expected to be a continuing series of symposiums at the executive mansion to salute America's greatest writers. Twain's words, said Bush, have been enjoyed by millions of Americans, including her husband, the president. "His favorite quote is, `Do the right thing. It will gratify a few and amaze the rest.

If you missed Monday's Show de Cristina, you missed a rare appearance by cast members of Betty la Fea who will star in a spinoff of the popular Colombian novela. "Las feas llegaron a UnivisiM-sn!" -- "The uglies arrived on UnivisiM-sn!" That's how Cristina Saralegui welcomed the group to the set, and to their new home on a different network. It was rather odd to see the UnivisiM-sn host so enthusiastically promote a novela that she claimed she didn't watch when it aired on Telemundo, and talk about an internationally acclaimed show that meant an unprecedented ratings surge for a rival network.

The word that best describes Laura Bozzo, the controversial host of Telemundo's talk show Laura en AmM-irica, is dynamo, though her critics refer to the Peruvian attorney-turned-TV host by less-flattering names. She brought her boundless and often ferocious energy, which she says is continuously fed by her public's affection, to the United States in January 2000 after conquering Peru, where the show was originally produced, and the rest of the Americas. Since then, la Doctora Laura, as she is widely known, has experienced a meteoric rise to the top. With her bombastic style, unprecedented on Spanish TV (akin to some sort of Latinized Jerry Springer)

September has turned out to be Cristina Saralegui's lucky month. Saralegui, one of the most recognized figures on Spanish-language television, has signed a one-year development deal with Touchstone Television to star in and co-produce a half-hour sitcom based on her life. The deal calls for Saralegui and her husband and manager, Marcos Avila, to act as co-executive producers of the untitled series, tentatively set to air next fall. Also this month, the host known as the Latin Oprah extended for another year her contract with UnivisiM-sn to produce and host her weekly prime-time talk show.

UnivisiM-sn's Lili Estefan and RaM-zl de Molina, hosts of the irreverent gossip show El Gordo y La Flaca and its spinoff Pica y se Extiende, just got some "serious" company. On Saturday, the network launched Tras la Verdad (After the Truth), a new half-hour show that claims to be more substantive and less sensationalistic than most entertainment programs. Hosted by Mara Patricia CastaM-qeda, one of Mexico's most-respected entertainment journalists, Tras la Verdad has been a ratings smash in Mexico since its premiere four months ago. The show was expanded from a popular entertainment segment in a Mexican news program.

When I finally met Tito Puente, who died last Wednesday, he let me know he hadn't liked my calling him viejo -- old man -- in the liner notes I had written for one of his albums. I hadn't said it, really. I was just quoting my young cousin, whom I'd taken to hear Puente and who had said something like "el viejo still smokes!" Still, in recent years, his personal manager, Joe Conzo, talked to me about him as "the old man." I guess it's something you never say to someone's face. Or in someone's liner notes.

Furniture buyers, designers and journalists craned their necks to see which celebrities they could see at the fall International Home Furnishings Market here. Right here, baby Latin media star and talk show host Cristina Saralegui unveiled her Casa Cristina Home Collection in the Pulaski Furniture Showroom. The collection was inspired by the eclectic furnishings in Villa Serena, her 1932 Mediterranean home on Palm Island. Saralegui was all smiles and frank in talking about what makes a home feel good.